Blank Slate
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day six hundred and seventy-two: Quinn has returned to McKinley, and she feels like a brand new person.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 31st cycle. Now cycle 32!_

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><p><strong>Hear that little bird twitter!<strong> _Been thinking about doing this for a couple days, then this morning decided to just go for it. If you go there, find 'gleekathon' and there I'll be. There's also a video explaining everything... Yep... ;) Check it out!_

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><p><strong>"Blank Slate"<br>Quinn **

She had grown much too accustomed to this kind of day… Like hitting the reset button and reintroducing herself. The first one had been in leaving Lucy Fabray behind at her old school, and then entering her new school as Quinn Fabray. Then she had become cheerleader Quinn, pregnant Quinn, cheerleader Quinn 2.0 – with new boiling emotions included. And now, with New Directions back in Lima, she was about to do it again. If she was going to give it a name, maybe… 'I left my hair in New York City…'

No matter what, New York was going to be a place for change, for a shift. She had gone in, thinking of doing something drastic for all the wrong reasons… hurting her friends in the process. But then someone had stepped in… two someones… The thing with Santana and Brittany, no matter all the crap they could put each other through, when it came down to it they would come together, when they really needed each other.

She wouldn't have pegged something as simple as a haircut as able to turn things around for her, but then there it was… reset… She had shed her troubles like she had shed her hair… or at least she would try. She had spent so much time angry, doubtful, so focused on all these things, but it was so easy to live in that pocket instead of considering… everything else on her mind.

Now though she'd let it go, left it behind, and she had a shot – again – at starting over… But what could she be? She couldn't go and say 'now this is what I am.' All she could do was dive in, renewed, and see what she got.

No matter how many times she'd hit that reset, the feeling she got when she passed those doors, a brand new version of herself, was always the same. It was one thing for her to know she had changed or was changing, but it was a whole other thing to unveil that change to all those people at school who would rather make their own assumptions, talk behind your back than to let you adjust to it. The one time where this was made easier, by the fact no one knew her to begin with, was the first time, when Quinn Fabray came into existence. After that, there were preconceptions to defeat, like they knew so much about her…

All those other times, she had put so much pressure on this immeasurable factor, but she wouldn't do it again, not this time… she was still trying to figure herself out, and she wouldn't let them interfere.

Truth was she felt… lighter… and not just because of the hair. She had left her old self behind, stripping away the weight it pressed on her shoulders. She knew she wasn't completely 'better,' for lack of another word. She had spent something like a year, swirling in a state she couldn't identify and much less escape. But now she had done something to change it, the only way she could. She wanted to fix herself… What that would involve, she wasn't sure, but now there she was… trying…

If there was one concern, and really she was doing her best to ignore it at the moment, it was the knowledge that summer was coming. She would find herself separated from those who played into the good parts as much as the bad parts of her life. They'd say they would still hang out, and for a while maybe it would be true, with some of them, but for the most part she'd just be on her own, with her mother… So what was going to happen then?

She could be strong, was strong… just not in the ways they would think… She had spent so much time on her own… or Lucy Fabray had. She would have to remind herself sometimes… that this time had passed, gone… She wasn't that girl anymore… except sometimes she would wonder if it would have been easier, to be her again. For so long, all she ever wanted was to stop being that girl, but now she saw some of the things she had truly sacrificed in letting her go… and it wasn't nearly as clear cut as she would have thought it to be.

So now the question became whether she would continue to look behind, if she could manage to look forward, and if she was to be truthful with herself… she didn't know. But at the same time she felt ready to do… something. She was lighter, she was at peace. She hoped it would last, but she could only hope. But she was happy now, and she wouldn't let anything get in the way. She was taking back her power with this reset.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******


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